


sixteen

by likelihood



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23644363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelihood/pseuds/likelihood
Summary: when do you start to feel normal, again?rewrite of an old study of mine.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	sixteen

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [2:46 am](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051202) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



> this is the product of my being on an overwatch kick lately. let’s hope it lasts.

Sixteen was... significant.

He was born the sixteenth, you know, on that hot August morning, crying in his mother’s arms with the sunrise. He celebrated his birthday every summery year in Tokushima, starting at midnight after Awa Odori and burning strong until he passed out from exhaustion. He stayed up, pushed his limits at every festival and event he could. 

More than once, Hanzo had arrived unannounced at the bar or club Genji had decided to frequent— the bouncers knew better than to deny his access, after all, because credit cards only ever meant anything with cash to back them up— only to find him piss-drunk and tripping over his own feet, among other things. More than once, Hanzo had wordlessly taken him back to the hotel he’d checked in at (under a different name, because this was _Genji,_ fifteen and entitled and smart enough to know never to say his name out loud, even if it was obvious by the dragon emblazoned on his back, by his _hair,_ by the way he carries himself, even when he’s practically moving in slow motion— because this is _Genji,_ entitled and selfish enough to be what he thinks is rebellious, to splurge hundreds of thousands of yen a night on hotels instead of staying at the family houses spread across Japan, but sheltered enough to not realize that this was _far_ from the worst option, _far_ from living in discomfort, _far_ from the dingy apartments and hostels and by-the-night coffin rooms that so many of the vendors and dancers he shot one-liners at had to live with). 

More than once, Hanzo had quietly paid the hotel staff, tipped them extra for their troubles, and disappeared before Genji woke the next morning, hungover with not a trace of his brother in his memories of the night before.

Genji had had sixteen… _conquests,_ he called them, because it was too embarrassing to admit that they had been relationships, fleeting and nebulous, when he was fifteen and thought himself a man. Sixteen flights of fancy, the longest of which had lasted three and a half months and ended with a slap to his face and angry tears as she’d stormed away. Maybe there had been some overlap, but who was to say? 

Sixteen dishes he’d tried (and failed) to cook before giving up on learning, sixteen of his father’s associates he’d offended (intentionally or not, it wasn’t like they could touch him), sixteen classes failed and sixteen letters sent to persuade his school not to expel him. (He wasn’t a model student, and those schools were just a way for Japan’s elite to posture, so what did it matter?.)

On Genji’s sixteenth birthday— or rather, the morning after— he came home, and his father was dead. 

A year passed, and Genji was numb. He did not celebrate his birthday. He did not go out and drink. He didn’t even seek comfort in a warm body.

A year passed, and Genji died.

Genji sighed and turned over in his bed. He was armorless— or as armorless as he could be, anymore. Seventeen. 

He almost wished he’d gone to Tokushima.

He raised a hand, inspected it in the moonlight, absentmindedly chewed at his lip. He’d gotten used to the scars. He’d accepted the scars. The skin grafts, he didn’t think would ever feel _normal._

Genji wondered what it would be like to feel real.

He didn’t like the thought of it; synthetic, manmade. He didn’t like the thought of not feeling _real._

Sometimes, Nepal felt farther away than it really was.

Genji took a breath.

The windows were open, and Genji was cold. His blankets were crumpled at the foot of his bed, but he didn’t move to pull them back up. He’d always been a restless sleeper.

Genji sighed again, and slowly, slowly, the need for warmth pushed him out of his bed. He sat there on the edge, for a minute, and stared with tired eyes at the window. Not through— _at_ the window, the heavy blackout curtains pulled to the side, the blank, cream-colored wall cast blue in the darkness.

Genji stood, dragged his feet until he stood at the windowsill. His hands moved to rest on it, and he waited a moment, stared at the moon hung silver in the sky. The sun was far from rising. He wondered when Zenyatta would wake.

Genji slid the window shut— slowly, slowly— and blinked at his reflection in the glass. The scars didn’t bother him anymore, but his hair— his hair was black.

His roots had long since faded; it had been years, after all. He blinked again, only half-surprised as he watched the tears slip down his cheeks. He wiped them away, skin grafts and all, and let himself close his eyes, if only for a moment. He turned and walked— slowly, slowly— past his bed and his blankets, left forgotten on the floor, to the bathroom.

Genji was going to dye his hair green today.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
